So I did my annual PEM cleaning on my 1.5 Roadster. Good news, it wasn't all that dirty. I could go 2-3 years without a cleaning really. Bad news, my fan shroud to my lower blower was broken in 4 places, all the bolt holes. This was done BEFORE I removed it. I tried to remove it and found that the carbon cargo hull and the lower sway bar just slightly kept it from getting out.

I am very METICULOUS when I do my own maintenance and was weary of TESLA working on my car. Well, my instinct proved me correct. There is NO WAY that I could have broke this blower!!! It was broken, actually BUTCHERED, on either the 1st or 2nd time TESLA did my $550 annual maintenance. By the way I'd feel guilty charging $250 for that, its not that much of a routine to do this. Let alone they break something and don't want to replace it. They just put that broken blower back up there, secured by the two support bars which hide it, and took my $550 without a smudge on their face.

I emailed Tesla and they said they'll get me a price on Monday on the new fan Shroud/Fan. Ummmm ok, no. They didn't hear me. I DIDN'T BREAK THIS AND HAVE PROOF FROM MY PICTURES AND VIDEO RECORDING THE WHOLE THING. It was broken as I removed the bolts and there are 2 brackets that gave these 4 failing points support. The only way is that SOMEONE didn't remove the lower SWAYBAR bolts to give the blower adequate clearance. When I loosened these 4 bolts on the swaybar they did not have any nicks from a socket and were very tight, from corrosion. Nobody took these off last year!!!

Putting this post out there to ensure other's don't have this issue when they do their own PEM cleaning and also for those who pay, to ask Tesla if they are going to guarantee their high priced maintenance and back it up with honesty and repeatable backing .

In the above pic you can see how tight the blower is to the lower swaybar and also the part of the cargo box re-enforcement that makes it a tight fit hence where someone tried to force the blower out of the tight space and broke it.

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I have more pics of the issue and video but don't want to piss people off with loading time. Again, I only trust myself working on my car. Period.

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You can see if you look closely there's NO WAY that blower will get removed out of there without getting damaged, look how close the lower swaybar is. Look at the upper cargo area. Jerks. Reason I'm more pissed is the ill response I got from Tesla not stepping up to take responsibility.

I have a video showing that I'm having trouble removing the blower and stating that its NOT going to clear, I then gently move the blower and see these broken pieces fall and cracks show. I then say that there's no way of this blower moving out of there with out getting damaged without removing and loosening the lower swaybar bolts which I did. I then safely removed the damaged blower.

TESLA PLEASE LISTEN!!!!

FOR THOSE OWNERS STILL GOING TO YOU FOR MAINTENANCE, HAVE YOUR QUALIFIED TRAINED TECHNICIANS TO REMOVE THE LOWER 4 SWAYBAR BOLTS BEFORE REMOVING THE 1.5 BLOWER!!!! IT WILL GET DAMAGED AND BUSTED IF YOU DON"T. AND IF BROKEN BAD ENOUGH WON'T HAVE PROPER COOLING TO THE ELECTRIC MOTOR. People are paying top dollar for what they think is top quality maintenance. If your Technician damages a customers part, tell them to REPLACE it, not HIDE it and bolt it back up. The repercussion is far worse, Please don't take short-cuts when a customer is expecting you and paying for you to do the job in a complete and competent manner!

You can also see those cracks are not fresh! No fresh clean plastic fracture lines to be seen. You also can see dust / grime that's accumulated on the fracture line in the pic above.

When I was in a few weeks ago for my service, they said my charge port door needed to be replaced (this has been stated for over a year now). To my surprise, the guy told me that it can be tricky to replace and if a particular plastic piece broke during repair the repair could cost thousands as they have to pull the side panel off.

I said that in my experience if a service center breaks a part during repair, that it is their responsibility to replace the part free of charge to which they disagreed with me as though it were my fault or the cars fault that the piece would break.

That will be a repair that I will not ever let them touch unless I have a written note stating that they are responsible for any damage that occurs during repair. I'm actually hesitant to ever let them work on my car especially knowing that there are few people left who know what they are doing.

Warranty Expired on mine, so I have a new mindset about all this. Nonetheless, Denver Service has an experienced Roadster Tech-guy who can do all this blindfolded, so I planned on him coming out for an at-home Annual Service. Unfortunately my big Charge Relay failed - the one just under the windshield. So I hauled her in so both jobs could be done at the Shop.

Next fall I think I'll raise it up good & solid and try to do this myself. If I get stymied I'll just call for Ranger Service. Looks to be a win-win situation all around.

Thanks guys. We'll see what Tesla does about this blower. I had Ford, when I was 16, have my '79 Ford Mustang Turbo to replace the turbo assembly. When I got my car back they had broken my lower left Hella fog light where I immediately noticed it and complained. They denied doing it. I walked out and showed them the broken glass on the parking lot, they hit a curb that was angled up from a snowplow which smashed the light. They then tried blaming my dad who owned the car for a long time before me and he knew how low the front lights were and to give the front ample space when parking. I recall to this day a little old lady (from Pasadena [j/k] )who said don't give up, they had your car, were responsible for it when they had it, and to keep complaining and ask for people higher up. I walked back in and did just that. Well after a little bit more time Ford gave me a new set of fog lights which they also installed themselves on the car. Although it was a fight, Ford's service did step up and take responsibility.

Is that steel that cracked or plastic? You could braze the steel or epoxy the plastic. Either way could be made stronger than new.

Btw, isn't the Nummi Plant knocking out more MS's each week than the entire existing Roadster Fleet?

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No, its the brittle plastic housing. There are two steel re-enforcement plates to ensure the top/bottom of the housing has even pressure to ensure a tight seal. So no way stress of the hanging blower from a pot-hole hit could break all 4 mounting corners of the blower housing. Also my foam that isolates the ESS, motor, and PEM was all broken and ripped from when they did the battery swap. You'd think they'd be more gentle on this stuff, they're the experts and see these Roadsters more than me.

Note that when your remove the blower, reach in to the accordion portion of the duct. In there you'll find all types of road gravel and junk. I had to get a small screwdriver and dislodge the pebbles then used a water hose to flush them out.

After some more inspection I found that it appears Telsa broke the electric motors protective plastic cover when they did one of the 2 battery swaps my Roadster went through. Again, there's nothing that will cause that plastic to break apart like that.

Tesla gave me a call today, Sunday to make sure the issue was discussed in detail and to avoid any miscommunication. Tesla is backing up their work and replacing the broken blower shroud as well as the broken motor cover. It appears that my original email was read wrong by them due to time and they mis-read that I wanted to purchase a new shroud and were under the impression it broke under normal driving conditions. Tesla re-read my email and follow ups and do agree that taking out/loosening the lower 4 bolts of the swaybar is protocol the technicians are to follow to properly remove the blower. They're also following up with different levels of managers in the service department to again make it clear to the technicians that no shortcuts are to be made when making repairs on customer's cars to ensure proper installation / removal of parts when any type of service is performed on a vehicle.

Happy that Tesla gave me a personal call on Sunday (which they didn't need to do) in order to get the exact details and to properly remedy the concern.

People do make mistakes, I do, but taking responsibility as well as action so the issue doesn't happen again is what's respectable and earns high regards.

Tesla gave me a call today, Sunday to make sure the issue was discussed in detail and to avoid any miscommunication. Tesla is backing up their work and replacing the broken blower shroud as well as the broken motor cover. It appears that my original email was read wrong by them due to time and they mis-read that I wanted to purchase a new shroud and were under the impression it broke under normal driving conditions. Tesla re-read my email and follow ups and do agree that taking out/loosening the lower 4 bolts of the swaybar is protocol the technicians are to follow to properly remove the blower. They're also following up with different levels of managers in the service department to again make it clear to the technicians that no shortcuts are to be made when making repairs on customer's cars to ensure proper installation / removal of parts when any type of service is performed on a vehicle.

Happy that Tesla gave me a personal call on Sunday (which they didn't need to do) in order to get the exact details and to properly remedy the concern.

People do make mistakes, I do, but taking responsibility as well as action so the issue doesn't happen again is what's respectable and earns high regards.

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That makes me feel better. At $175 per hour for labor, I expect absolute top notch service. Tesla looks to be making it right. I hope they continue to maintain that philosophy and make customers happy, unlike some dealership repair departments. I want to see Tesla do well, I'm pulling for them!

The 2.0s may have a whole different design with maybe easier less risky teardown steps.

Reminds me of GM 'first year uniqueness' with both Corvair and Fiero. Second year production was essentially a whole 'nother car, a clean re-implementation of the same overall design.

I hope TM can find spares to replace the busted stuff.
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Tesla did design the 2.x's to allow faster access and maintenance to the battery terminals / connections. Also it gives you a test-point to verify you've properly shut down voltage from the ESS to the PEM which is properly achieved though the diagnostics screen or by pulling the fuse. Not sure if the Roadster will throw warnings / errors if shot down via the fuse. So the 2.0 has access to the battery/cable terminals from the top and custom access panel that's in the front right of the cargo bin. The 1.5's don't have that. However the 1.5's have nice fat aircraft quality connectors so when the main battery wire separates from the PEM, the connector first walks back that breaks the connection where it safely can be removed. I double checked that voltage didn't exist on the female side of the ESS connector (passenger side) before proceeding on.

The larges connector is the one that's under the driver's side of the PEM. I managed to disconnect that while my friend lifted up on the drivers side of the PEM. Was difficult. Then when putting the PEM back in, it was impossible to get that connector back on. The PEM is on an angle, the wire plane/surface is flat and not on an angle, and there's no slack or give in the large motor cable. My arm was getting attacked by the silver heat sink on the bottom and I knew this wasn't the route technicians went down. Looking at it closer I managed to see the best way to access the cable, I first had to remove the rear drivers side fender liner and with that, had to remove the driver's side wheel to access the fender liner bolts. After removing the liner I was able to reach in and properly re-connect the aircraft connector from the motor's wire to the bottom of the PEM.

If you have an angled 13MM box wrench that's a ratchet / swivel design, use it. It allowed me to remove the top PEM mounting bolts very easily, its in a tight / odd location where a typical socket doesn't seem to fit well in.

Also with the 1.5's, put tape on the passenger side as well as the driver's side's carbon fiber where the charge wire (driver side) and ESS wire (passenger side) come out. The CF is very delicate there and the aluminum wire connectors will bag and chip the CF and paint quite easily. I'm amazed that the Tesla tech's managed to install / remove that PEM without chipping it. I ended up wrapping the inner side of the CF holes with blue painters tape. That way it dampened any little hit or tap of the connector. I'm going to make some black rubber/plastic bushing that will run the inside diameter of it which will look more clean and also be a protective barrier the next time I do a PEM removal.

After removing the PEM take this opportunity to clean everything up on and around the motor, the ESS, the frame, etc. Makes it much cleaner and manageable the next time you're in there.

That makes me feel better. At $175 per hour for labor, I expect absolute top notch service. Tesla looks to be making it right. I hope they continue to maintain that philosophy and make customers happy, unlike some dealership repair departments. I want to see Tesla do well, I'm pulling for them!

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When I was at the Torrance service center the hourly rate was $175 for MS and $200 for Roadsters!

When I was at the Torrance service center the hourly rate was $175 for MS and $200 for Roadsters!

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Same in Watertown, MA. Not a fair comparison but the independent shop down the road from me is $64/hr. I don't know what the going rate is at most dealers for other brands. Hoping to do most of my own maintenance/repairs on my roadster when the warrantee runs out.

Any chance of a video of the PEM removal and maintenance procedure? Maybe post on youtube? This should be a sticky thread! Very useful for current and future Roadster owners who want to do their own annual.